The battle for legal contraception challenged key tenets of Irish identity: Catholicism, large families, traditional gender roles, and sexual puritanism. It is a story of gender, religion, social change, and failing efforts to reaffirm Irish moral exceptionalism.

The Irish battle for legal contraception was a contest over Irish exceptionalism: the belief that Ireland could resist global trends despite the impact of second-wave feminism, falling fertility, and a growing number of women travelling for abortion. It became so lengthy and so divisive because it challenged key tenets of Irish identity: Catholicism, large families, traditional gender roles, and sexual puritanism. The Catholic Church argued that legalising contraception would destroy this way of life, and many citizens agreed. The Battle to Control Female Fertility in Modern Ireland provides...